Air Lift

My burden rises
above the landscape
of the past, hills
of desire traversed
by the old trail
we ran along
when we were
young.

         You cannot
bear the weight
of the past I carry—
nor can I bear yours.
To me yours appears
a bag of down or air.
You may calculate
mine in similar fashion.

The past is a common
inheritance and a private
trauma, an obsession. It is
our wealth, immeasurable
as the beauty we found
along the pathways of our
youth.

Air Lift

         The hills foreshorten
the horizon, bring the past
into a strange up-close
relief. Its burden, distinct
for each of us, obtrudes
upon but can’t obscure
the vista—floats aloft
enigmatic, unignorable.